R FBN/Charleston Debate(s) Tweetoloquy and Open Thread

CK MacLeod

WordPresser: Writing since ancient times, blogging, e-commercing, and site installing-designing-maintaining since 2001.

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54 Responses

  1. Kazzy says:

    Do you think the shooting and conversation about the Confederate flag will be brought up?Report

  2. Kazzy says:

    So Cruz said that under his watch no American solider would be on his knees.

    What, exactly, would he have done to prevent what happened in Iran? Never put our troops in foreign lands/seas? Train them to kung fu all comers? Insist that they all go down fighting?Report

    • Roland Dodds in reply to Kazzy says:

      @kazzy He would have made sure they all died pointless deaths like a good, decent American.Report

      • Kazzy in reply to Roland Dodds says:

        Ship Captain: “We’ve drifted into foreign waters here. Being approached by Iranian ship. They’ve made request to board.”
        Home Base: “Allow boarding… Maintain peacef…
        President Cruz: “BLAZE OF GLORY!”
        Ship Captain: “Who is that?”
        President Cruz: “BLAZE! OF! GLORY!”
        Home Base: “Mr. President… is that…”
        President Cruz: “THAT’S AN ORDER, SOLDIER!”Report

      • notme in reply to Roland Dodds says:

        I’d settle for not having them surrender like the french navy.Report

        • Roland Dodds in reply to notme says:

          Since they were released the next day, I think surrendering and going back to their lives seemed like a far better thing to do other than fight it out over a mistaken border incursion.Report

        • Kazzy in reply to notme says:

          So what was the alternative you’d have preferred?

          Saying, “I wish they didn’t do that,” and providing no alternative amounts to saying nothing.Report

          • notme in reply to Kazzy says:

            Saying, “I wish they didn’t do that,” and providing no alternative amounts to saying nothing.

            But this does?

            “Ship Captain: “We’ve drifted into foreign waters here. Being approached by Iranian ship. They’ve made request to board.”
            Home Base: “Allow boarding… Maintain peacef…
            President Cruz: “BLAZE OF GLORY!”
            Ship Captain: “Who is that?”
            President Cruz: “BLAZE! OF! GLORY!”
            Home Base: “Mr. President… is that…”
            President Cruz: “THAT’S AN ORDER, SOLDIER!””Report

            • Kazzy in reply to notme says:

              Answer the question. If you can.

              I think the sailors handled the situation properly. And I think Cruz is full of shit if he thinks there is something he could have done as President that would have resulted in a better outcome.Report

              • Kolohe in reply to Kazzy says:

                Talking on Iranian TV was a mistake.

                Edit: and as the reports are coming out, they screwed up from the get go with their transit plan, and then again with elements of the execution.Report

              • greginak in reply to Kolohe says:

                Which puts it on the sailors have F’d up. So a simple overnight stay and diplomatic solution seems like a best case situation.Report

        • j r in reply to notme says:

          When exactly did the French Navy surrender?

          Just a reminder that this sort of political sideshow antic is almost completely divorced from any sort of historical or empirical reality.Report

          • Richard Hershberger in reply to j r says:

            The United States owes a lot to the French Navy. The Battle of Yorktown was predicated on the Battle of the Chesapeake, which in turn was a rare win for the French over the Royal Navy.Report

          • El Muneco in reply to j r says:

            Sigh. The French navy is famous for dying rather than surrendering. They lost a significant fraction of the men the US lost at Pearl Harbor, then the remainder continued to obey their legitimate orders despite defections until their government became no longer a thing.

            We joke about cheese eating and surrendering, and the French land forces did fail in a number of ways that are in retrospect predictable. But I won’t hear a word spoken against the French naval or air forces in WW2. Despite the stench of garlic, they acquitted themselves as honorably as possible given the hands they were dealt.Report

            • greginak in reply to El Muneco says:

              And what the know nothings forget about WW 2 is the Germans whipped everybody for the first couple years. The only thing that saved the UK was the channel. They beat the greeks, who fought heroically, as well the poles. They conquered a huge amount of russia and killed/took prisoner millions before they were barely stopped. The French did no worse then the others. In fact at the first big battle we faced the Germans in North Africa, Kasserine Pass, we got whipped.Report

              • Morat20 in reply to greginak says:

                IIRC, more French soldiers died defending Paris than the US lost in the whole fricking war.Report

              • El Muneco in reply to Morat20 says:

                Not to mention that they were defending Paris against the Germans for the fifth time in 125 years. They lost five out of six generations of young men fighting over the same provinces against the same enemies. Admittedly, one of those five times they were the instigators.

                And yet another massive irony – we think of the French as being passive because of the results, but if anything any failure of theirs in WW1 was being too aggressive tactically with regards to the facts on the ground. WW2 isn’t a fair comparison because they were doomed demographically and they’d known about it for years and dreaded the possibility. Even so they fought with honor, if not with the best of all possible strategies (to put it mildly).Report

              • Napoleon vs. the Sixth Coalition, Franco-Prussian War, WW1, WW2. France was the aggressor in the first and second of those. What am I missing?Report

    • El Muneco in reply to Kazzy says:

      Cruz has an uncomfortable fondness for that phrase.Report

    • trizzlor in reply to Kazzy says:

      Well, actually…

      My question would be, was the on-board radar equipment operable? If so, then the approaching enemy craft would have been detected. That being the case, the officer in charge should have reported contact, verified that they were not friendly, and taken action to defend his position, his boats. That means warning shots should have been fired, if not heeded, and then the full power of these assault boats levied against the enemy watercraft — with situation reports being sent to higher command. We need to know why exactly those actions were not taken — and if the young officer in charge was told to not take any action. And if so, by whom.

      The result of two U.S. Navy vessels being boarded and seized by an enemy — which is what the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Navy is — is disturbing. The images and video they took depicting our sailors on their knees in the position of surrender is damning. This, folks, is an act of war, and our sailors were captured. Let’s not try and use “nuanced” language.

      Now, I’m sure there are those progressive socialist detractors who would say, Col. West, you would have started a war. And that is the exact example of cowardice from which the Iranians are now benefitting[sic].

      ~ http://www.allenbwest.com/2016/01/folks-heres-what-i-find-very-odd-about-what-happened-with-iran-and-our-navy-yesterday/Report

    • Saul Degraw in reply to Kazzy says:

      “So Cruz said that under his watch no American solider would be on his knees.”

      What a prude!!!Report

  3. Kazzy says:

    Don’t call Indiana JV!Report

  4. Kolohe says:

    Kazzy:
    So Cruz said that under his watch no American solider would be on his knees.

    “Today, Jan 21, 2017, President Cruz signed his first executive order, banning the Catholic Mass at US Army chapels”Report

  5. Michelle says:

    I’m totally amused by the whole Cruz birther thing. Apparently, there are legitimate constitutional arguments that he doesn’t meet the definition of “natural born citizen.” Please let it be so. He’s one meglomanical asswipe who should never be allowed within a mile of the White House.Report

    • notme in reply to Michelle says:

      “He’s one meglomanical asswipe who should never be allowed within a mile of the White House.”

      That’s odd because I feel the same way about Hillary every time I hear her speak.

      We should really have a similar post next Dem debate so we can comment about them.Report

      • Michelle in reply to notme says:

        I have no particular love for Hilary and have no plans to vote for her, but she’s nowhere near as scary as the dominionist Cruz. If almost everybody thinks you’re an asshole (and it seems nearly everybody who has to deal with Cruz on a regular basis does), then you’re probably a serious asshole with major mental issues that should preclude you from the presidency. I don’t care how successful you are. If the GOP nomination comes down to Trump and Cruz, I pray Trump wins.

        And we should definitely do a similar commentary on the next Democratic debate, which hopefully won’t be on a Saturday night. Does the Democratic party want people not to watch? Jeez.Report

        • CK MacLeod in reply to Michelle says:

          @michelle The R debates have generated more interest – generally and here at OT – mainly because they present an apparently highly uncertain, multi-sided contest, featuring several colorful characters trying to get in the political Sportscenter highlight reels. As for OT specifically, we also have at least one regular contributor, Dan, who writes well-informed and intelligent horse-racy commentary, and we have found a few people who also enjoy immersing themselves in debate-agitated Twitter waters.

          Most of these qualities are absent for the D debates – though lately some people have been trying to squint Bernie into believability, potentially adding a bit of drama to whatever goings-on on that side.

          I think we’ve had a couple of posts inspired by discussion at Dem debates, but I don’t think anyone has posted on the Dem race at all since Our Tod’s Hillary-skeptical pieces of a hundred years ago or so in blog time. Bottom-line, if/when anybody wants to OT-cover a Dem debate, I’d be happy to set up a set-up. So far no one’s asked.Report

  6. Richard Hershberger says:

    You could not pay me enough to watch this. Nor, for that matter, the Democratic equivalent. During (IIRC) the first Democratic debate I was the after dinner speaker giving a talk on baseball and the Civil War to a Civil War roundtable. (Miraile dictu, I was paid for this. My wife was astonished.) This was in central Pennsylvania. I understand central Pennsylvania: very nice people, and the last thing I want to do is talk politics with them. So when one of my table mates during the dinner raised the topic of Hillary and that evening’s debate, I proclaimed that I could not stand listening to politicians, regardless of whether or not I voted for them. This proclamation has the benefit of being true. If I am driving down the road with NPR on, and they cut to a clip of a political speech, I switch stations, even if it is my guy speaking. My proclamation worked beautifully. It is nearly universally acceptable, and if anyone noticed the implication that I might be voting for Hillary, they had the discretion to not raise the issue.Report

  7. j r says:

    I tried to watch the Republican debate, but it lost me after the opening credits.

    https://youtu.be/oV5LQcmuGg8

    I found it quite derivative, frankly.Report

  8. Rufus F. says:

    Why I would not be a good journalist reason #245: I was in Charleston yesterday and today and was not aware this was going on. Instead, I was eating fantastic shrimp and grits in a cloistered bar that specialized in Gullah food and chatting with the folks there. It seemed the general consensus on Donald Trump the one time he came on TV was that he says some crazy things and just don’t give a fish.

    My “midlife crisis tour” of the southern US should continue for most of the next month or so. I’ll post about it when I’m done.Report